THE REPORT: Panama is the most recent recipient of a monster report! The hairless and bloated monster with hooked claws discovered in Panama is being called: astounding, superb, incredible, and mostly a sloth. Three teens from Cerro Azul in Northern Panama reportedly spotted the creature sauntering along by a cave and were frightened by its approach. What the teens did next was understandable. What is the first logical thing to do when approached by a cute, bald, skinny creature which may be the greatest discovery in all cryptozoology history? Beat it to death with sticks, of course. In a sad display of delinquent angst, the teens attacked the creature with sticks and threw its corpse into a pool of water (to return later, of course with a camera to take pictures).
The story is that the adorable creature shown above (which looks remarkably like ET) made the kids fear for their lives and so they took autoritative action immediately to prevent what would likely have been another "Godzilla in Tokyo" situation for the helpless residents of Panama. I suppose we'll never really know what it was now, will we...
Most viewers and expert cryptozoologists say that the creature is no more than a sloth which somehow lost its fur (used too much nair?). The hooked claws on its hands and the body structure seem to support this claim. As punishment for their killing the cryptid, it is my decree that the teens should be forced to watch videos like this one all day long to make them feel like shit for the rest of eternity:
MY OPINION: My opinion on this was probably clear throughout this post. It makes me sick when people abuse animals (especially ones which could have led to scientific discoveries). What was probably just a curious animal is now a rotting corpse because some teens were bored and had nothing better to do than kill a defenseless creature. And I don't believe a word about them being scared for their lives. Sloths are practically the slowest land mammal in existence (ie. you can outrun a sloth).
The Report: Kenny Mahoney, a humble gardener living in Jefferson County, Kentucky, reports to have caught the fabled Bigfoot on camera. As possibly the most frequently sighted cryptid in the world, Bigfoot has a reputation in Kentucky, albeit closer to the Appalachian Mountains of Northern Kentucky.
Mahoney had an issue. His garden of green beans were repeatedly found trampled and dessicated presumably by the wildlife in the area. Mahoney says that he was "determined to catch the culprit", and so placed a motion-detecting camera just outside the garden to see what was going on. When he showed the tape to reporters, it showed the usual pests of Kentucky, including raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, and a large dark figure about 50 yards away which stood over five feet tall and almost as wide. Take a look at the video for yourself:
But is it Bigfoot? There seem to be a lot of theories about what the camera could have caught, including a bear, a trash bag, and of course, a legendary Bigfoot. Lets examine this situation more closely...
My Opinion: It always kills me to force logic on a situation which would be easy to believe, and I'm sure that a large bipedal hominid exists somewhere on Earth, but in my professional opinion, this simply isn't it. Think about it. Everyone wants to protect their garden from nasty scavengers, but honestly, who puts out a camera to find out what's going on out there? The first thing you would do is buy a picket fence for the garden. Knowing what's attacking your vegetables does little good whether its a squirrel or a raccoon. The approach is the same: buy a fence. Mahoney did not buy a fence, but instead put up a camera to catch what? If he knows all the wildlife in the area, he must have had some idea of what may have been attacking the vegetables. To me it sounds like he wouldn't put up a camera unless he was expecting to find something out of the ordinary. Hmmm... my hoax senses are tingling.
Secondly, I don't know about you, but this looks an awful lot like a trash bag to me, although a local expert on wildlife said she did not think so:
"Mahoney’s wife Margaret sent the photo to a wildlife expert who specializes in black bears. She said it looks like it is fur and not a trash bag, but still cannot confirm it is a bear."
As usual, there is only one fuzzy picture for reference which leaves a lot of things to wonder about such as: why are there not more pictures of the creature, why are there no tracks from such a massive creature, why are there no signs of undergrowth tramples where "Bigfoot" was standing, etc...
Another inconclusive, but interesting report. What do you think?
THE REPORT: The extremely rare Arakan Forest Turtle which lives near Myanmar was thought extinct in the wild since 1908. Although some of the turtles were found in local food markets in 1994, its existence in the wild remained unsure. One possible cause for its extinction is that it was over hunted due to its value in medicinal recipes. Another possible culprit would be the extinction of the Sumatran rhino which was found in the area until about 1950. The turtles name in the native tongue (Pyant Cheezar) literally translates to: "Turtle that eats rhino feces" (see picture top right). Perhaps the elimination of one of its main food sources led to the turtle's near-demise. But fear not, for five new specimens (14 living in captivity) were found in the Rakhine Yoma elephant wildlife sanctuary just months ago (May 2009) in the Arakan Hills just west of Myanmar. It is possible that the turtles have stumbled upon a new food source (elephant dung) and may be making a comback in the animal kingdom.
The fourteen are held in: Zoo Atlanta, the St. Louis Zoo, the Miami Metro Zoo, River Banks Zoo and Garden in Columbia, South Carolina, and Knoxville Zoo. The newest additions to the turtle family will remain in the Elephant sanctuary they were found in.
MY OPINION: It's always amazing to discover that a species thought long-gone shows more resilience than you expected. It gives me more hope for wildlife as global warming continues to spike. All I can say is I feel sorry for the turtles who have to eat droppings all day. Oh well, they would probably look at my meatloaf and say the same thing. That is, if they could talk. Which they can't. Ah well, just give them another couple million years of evolution. It worked for the dinosaurs... sort of.
REPORT: Well, there seems to be a lot of buzz going on about the latest video hoax of a Yeti filmed in Poland by a man who was reportedly just innocently taping Justyna Folger's figure when the sighting occured.
“I wandered into the river for a dip when I realised that something was on the opposite shore,” she said. "At first I thought it was a bear but it appeared to be stooping and then it raised itself on to two legs and ran off. I couldn’t believe it.”
I suppose I would be a bad host not to at least post it, but obviously there is good reason to be skeptical. You watch the movie and see if you notice anything... fishy...
First off - and I know I'm not an expert on Yetis - honestly, aren't most animals usually more 'interested' in their own species? I suppose considering all the other females in his animal kingdom have beards and body hair he has pretty good taste...
Secondly (and this is always a good sign of whether a video is a hoax or not), the camera man. I thought it was funny how the guy had perfect aim when filming the hot girl in the bathing suit, but spontaneously suffered an epileptic seizure as soon as the yeti appeared. There is not a single frame you can pause at where the 'yeti' can be distinguished as anything more than a blob. Although I have to admit, fits of uncontrollable vibration and poor video quality seem to be common characteristics of cryptid sightings.
MY OPINION: It's impossible to prove this was a hoax, but I maintain right now that this this video would be just too good... or 'wrong'... to be true.
REPORT: Originally a cryptid of Latin origin, the Chupacabra - the monster whose name means "goat sucker" - has haunted the lives of farmers and livestock owners for decades. Chupacabras by description seem to be crosses between wolves, lizards, and vampires. These scaly, bloodsucking quadrupeds have manifested themselves in Latin monster legend since the first incident in the early 1990's when farmers reported that over 150 farm animals had been drained of blood by the monster. This particular instance, however, was likely exaggerated since the size of a beast that could single-handedly drain 150 farm animals of all bodily fluids would have to be a giant. If the report is true, it strongly indicates that chupacabras hunt in packs, and that this was not a single animal's work.
The Chupacabra is perhaps the cryptid with the most concrete evidence since encounters surpass that of the standard: "I saw a big fuzzy thing moving through the trees" report. Instead, there are dead animals each time one strikes, and all killed in a very unique manner as well. The chances of a farmer being willing to kill off his own animals simply to stage a hoax is unlikely as well.
In any case, reports of the monster did not stop there. The chupacabra left a trail of blood once more in 1995 where it reportedly drained the blood completely from eight sheep before being chased off by their owner. Sightings and reports were not even localized to Mexico and South America. Since the initial report in the 1990's, the famed beast has struck or been sighted as far north as Maine in the United States. And now to the meat of the issue. A chupacabra 'corpse' has been discovered in Texas, just South of San Antonio, to be exact. Jerry Ayer,a teacher at the Blanco Taxidermy School in Blanco, Texas was given the corpse of the animal by a former student who said the creature had been rooting through his cousin's barn. The two laid out poison thinking it was probably a large rodent, but to there surprise, the body of this strange creature above was what they found.
"It got into his cousin's barn and they thought maybe it was a rodent tearing things up, and they had no idea since they’ve never seen it," said Ayer. "He got out some poison, and this is what they got the very next day."
Ayer stored the corpse in his freezer, but is not exactly sure what to do with it. Skeptics immediately wanted chemical tests performed to see if what Ayer had found was a hoax or not. Ayer, however, wanted the specimen to be immediately stuffed and preserved as a museum piece.
"It's definitely something that I don't want to throw away. I think it would make a tremendous mount, and a very interesting conversation piece."
The specimen is, in fact, very interesting. Previous Chupacabra finds have happened, but in most cases, the specimens were identified as gray foxes with mange or other skin disorders resulting in the loss of hair and blue-ish gray pigmentation on the skin. Ayer's specimen has not been confirmed as a victim of mange, so for now it's baldness remains in question (cancer?). It's front legs, strangely, are longer than that it's back legs, and the canine teeth are longer than a typical coyote's (right picture) which are the only similar animals that live in Texas. Its long teeth were what made Ayer dub the creature a 'Chupacabra' in the first place (left picture). Now it's the skeptics against Ayer to determine whether or not we will find out if his monster is supernatural, or a super impostor.
MY OPINION: In this one, I have to pit myself on the side of the skeptics. I have to agree that the specimen is an odd one, but long legs and sharp teeth are hardly grounds for calling it a chupacabra. Nobody actually witnessed the creature sucking blood from livestock, and certainly small genetic mutations such as slightly longer legs are not uncommon among wild dogs or coyotes (Almost all animals have small genetic mutations which make them imperfect). Secondly, Ayer's determination to stuff his find away on a shelf for eternity and to forgo chemical testing suggests to me that even he is worried that his find will turn out to be nothing more than a big flop. Perhaps he would rather have an everlasting question than risk his fame on an answer he fears will discredit his 'chupacabra'. As for me, I'm okay either way. I am curious as to what DNA tests would say, but then I always love a good mystery too, so this find is bound to cause some excitement no matter which way you look at it.
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